Glenn Beck: No Free Speech for YOU!!

Are you aware of the current "scrape" going on between Glenn Beck and his advertisers? Due to comments he made last month, when he called President Obama a racist and said he believed that Obama had deep-seated hatred of Whites, many advertisers are pulling their commercials from his show.

"Coincidentally," Beck has exposed that the organization behind the boycott, Color of Change, has a co-founder who is presently Obama's "green jobs Czar" -- Van Jones. This "appointment" (and I use that term very lightly, given that "czars" don't have to go through an actual congressional review like Secretaries) has a very controversial past involving having left prison an avowed Marxist who was a leading member of the Marxist group STORM: "Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement."

Here's the headline on Color of Change's website:

"Stop Glenn Beck's race bating"

Fox's Glenn Beck recently said President Obama is "a racist" and has a "deep-seated hatred for white people." Beck is on a campaign to convince the American public that President Obama's agenda is about serving the needs of Black communities at White people's expense. It's repulsive, divisive and shouldn't be on the air.

Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy In Media yesterday came to Beck's defense (emphasis added):

Glenn Beck Closing in on Van Jones

AIM Column | By Cliff Kincaid | August 25, 2009

"Is Glenn Beck finished?" is the headline over an article on a left-wing website, insisting that a campaign against Beck's Fox News Channel program has cost him 36 advertisers and that his show may be cancelled as a result. The campaign against Beck is being waged by a group called Color of Change, whose co-founder, Van Jones, is now Obama's green-jobs czar.

Not coincidentally, Beck has repeatedly singled out Van Jones for criticism, citing evidence of his communist past. The source of this evidence is New Zealand blogger Trevor Loudon, the same researcher who originally unearthed the fact that Obama's mysterious mentor "Frank" in Obama's book Dreams from My Father was Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis. We confirmed that identification with a separate source and ran with the story last year, even obtaining the 600-page FBI file on Davis. It also came out that Davis was a sex pervert, doper, and pornographer.

The Obama campaign eventually confirmed Frank's identity but tried to play down his relationship with Obama. Most media gave the scandal a ho-hum.

Trevor Loudon, who deserves far more credit than he gets for smoking out the communists in and around the Obama Administration, broke the Van Jones story back on April 6 and has run several follow-ups. Among other things, he revealed that Jones was a leading member of a Marxist organization known by the acronym STORM, which means Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement. A 96-page history of the organization mentions how several STORM members had traveled to Cuba in the summer of 1999 as part of the Venceremos Brigade. This is the group that was originally sponsored by the Castro regime and the Weather Underground.

To add to the mystery, it turns out that "Van" Jones is not even his real name. His real first name is Anthony; he says he changed it because "Van" sounded cool. Various accounts say that he has been arrested twice.

Aaron Klein of World Net Daily then wrote a story on Jones, citing Loudon's work. Since then, Beck and others have seized on it. Now, some more of this fascinating story can be told. I have been engaged for months in a series of Freedom of Information Act requests with the Obama Administration for information about Jones and how he was hired.

It seems clear that Jones has undergone, with powerful sponsors and benefactors, an extreme makeover. Beck, to his credit, is trying to peel away the protective cover. He needs our support to remain on the air and pursue this story. The trail will most certainly lead beyond Jones himself.

...

[Go to Kincaid's full article to read his account of his FOIA requests and apparent cover-ups.]

But how did Jones get HIS job?

Glenn Beck deserves enormous credit for trying to answer this question. He should not be forced off the air for trying to get answers.

How effective have the boycotts by Beck's sponsors been? The AP reported on Monday that a total of 33 Fox advertisers, a dozen more than a week ago, had pulled their ads from Beck's show:

The Clorox Co., a former Beck advertiser, now says that "we do not want to be associated with inflammatory speech used by either liberal or conservative talk show hosts." The maker of bleach and household cleaners said in a statement that is has decided not to advertise on political talk shows.

The shows present a dilemma for advertisers, who usually like a "safe" environment for their messages. The Olbermanns, Hannitys, O'Reillys, Maddows and Becks of the TV world are more likely to say something that will anger a viewer, who might take it out on sponsors.

They also host the most-watched programs on their networks.

"This is a good illustration of that conundrum," said Rich Hallabran, spokesman for UPS Stores, which he said has temporarily halted buying ads on Fox News Channel as a whole.

Beck can bring the eyeballs. With the health care debate raising political temperatures, his show had its biggest week ever right before his vacation, averaging 2.4 million viewers each day, according to Nielsen Media Research.

He was actually on another Fox show July 28 when he referred to Obama as a racist with "a deep-seated hatred for white people." The network immediately distanced itself from Beck's statement, but Beck didn't. He used his radio show the next day to explain why he believed that. He would not comment for this article, spokesman Matthew Hiltzik said.

Luckily for Beck, he has a huge fan base that is also supported by defenders of free speech, even though those defenders might not necessarily like what Beck said about Obama. There are a number of online groups encouraging people to write the boycotting companies and ask them to reconsider. The writers can also threaten their own little boycott if they wish. One such group is DefendGlenn,com, which provides the public with e-mail addresses of companies and offers suggestions for civility in writing.